wow. I truly do not know how to answer the question of ; am I a Christian or not. I am not sure what a Christian is. I mean I hear about all the Christian's going to church , believing in God, loving all. Then in turn I hear about Christains protesting funeral of soldiers, hating people because they are gay, talking about killing all non Christian's, ect. ect. , So to tell you I am not a Christian would be wrong , for the fact that I do believe God, I do believe in the words of Jesus, however some of them I find confusing. To tell you I am a Christain would be wrong also, because I do not protest soldiers , I do not hate people because they are gay or because they do not believe the same way I do . I hope you do not think of this as a cop out because that is not what it is,, I just really do not know at this time how to define what a Christian is which in turn makes in impossible for me to answer the question in a completely honest manner. If I sound totally confused here it is because I am .

And I would love to be able to get a few quotes from you .. wow , after reading what I just wrote , I sound totally messed up in my thought process. That is kinda scary..lol

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Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

I will send you an out line of what I will be trying to do with the paper , if you agree I would like to use some of your quotes if you believe It is not a fair paper then I will not use any. If you would like I will even send you a rough draft as I get it done..

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Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

wow. I truly do not know how to answer the question of ; am I a Christian or not. I am not sure what a Christian is. I mean I hear about all the Christian's going to church , believing in God, loving all. Then in turn I hear about Christains protesting funeral of soldiers, hating people because they are gay, talking about killing all non Christian's, ect. ect. , So to tell you I am not a Christian would be wrong , for the fact that I do believe God, I do believe in the words of Jesus, however some of them I find confusing. To tell you I am a Christain would be wrong also, because I do not protest soldiers , I do not hate people because they are gay or because they do not believe the same way I do . I hope you do not think of this as a cop out because that is not what it is,, I just really do not know at this time how to define what a Christian is which in turn makes in impossible for me to answer the question in a completely honest manner. If I sound totally confused here it is because I am .

And now you see the problem. Christians are whatever they want to be, with no magic god involved. There is no magic god smiting those who would take his name in vain, do things not of his “will”, etc. We have a universe that is a spot on imitation of a universe without a Christian god as described in the bible. The bible can be used to support all you say and more. And this indicates to me that this god is totally man-made and all gods are self-projections of the people who believe in them. It’s abbrieviated SPAG here or GASP, self-projection as God/God as self-projection. Your god will always be what *you* want it to be.

Now, in the bible, it says that all followers of JC will be able to do miracles like him and even better. I would think this should be a good way to tell who is a Christian and who is not, but seeing that no self-professed Chrsitian can do anything like this, I am left to think either there are no Christians who fulfill whatever it is that this god wants or that this god simply doesn’t exist.

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And I would love to be able to get a few quotes from you .. wow , after reading what I just wrote , I sound totally messed up in my thought process. That is kinda scary..lol

Riley, you seem pretty young to me (and I’m an ancient 45 ) You can be confused all you want. Religion makes little sense and the more thought you apply to it, the less sense it makes, becoming just one more set of myths. PM me and I’ll do my best to answer what you might ask. But don’t ever think I speak for all atheists. I just speak for me.

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

velkyn: thank you , I will pm you as soon as I can , I am on my way to class now.. .. and as for young,, lol.. I wish i was 45 again.. thank you for you help. you seem like a very caring person. and the world can use all of them it can get.

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Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

velkyn: thank you , I will pm you as soon as I can , I am on my way to class now.. .. and as for young,, lol.. I wish i was 45 again.. thank you for you help. you seem like a very caring person. and the world can use all of them it can get.

Hah! well, age doesn't matter. I should get my butt back to college.

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

I'm willing to bet that Rileys claims about a paper are equally as dishonest and empty as the rest of his words and actions have been up to date.

I would just like to know what words I have said that you feel have been dishonest , and as for empty , well that is relative to what you believe is empty. How would you define empty Alzael? Just asking so I can be sure we are talking about the same definition of the word.

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Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

I'm willing to bet that Rileys claims about a paper are equally as dishonest and empty as the rest of his words and actions have been up to date.

Sorry , you never said my words were dishonest, my mistake, what you said was that they were equally as dishonest as the rest of my words. and with that you would be correct, I think.e·qual·ly? ?/?ikw?li/ Show Spelled[ee-kwuh-lee] Show IPAadverb 1.in an equalor identical manner: to treat rich and poor equally. 2.to an equaldegree or extent: You are equally matched meaning the same. so does being equally dishonest mean my words of the past were dishonest, or my word were honest so the new words are equal to the words in the past which means I am telling the truth now as I was in the past.

whatever, this could give me a headache. Look I am not asking you or anyone to trust me up front, time will tell.. either I am real and honest or I am a liar that should be shot in the head.. What I do will let you know which kind of person I am . So I take no offence to your caution.

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Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

jaybwell: Three things. First, I meant that the probability of drawing a royal flush becomes unity (100%) as soon as it actually happens, no matter what the calculated odds happen to be. That's what I meant by it not being a matter of probability then.

I understand. That's why I extended the analogy to put it in position of continuation. We can calculate the odds of it happening again with the understanding that previous success has no bearing on future success.

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Second, probability is not straightforward math,

To the part I emboldened, it's much worse than that especially when you consider that

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we have no real knowledge of what's actually required. We have some guesses based on the extrapolated conditions of the primordial Earth, but we have no evidence, and we can't meaningfully calculate the odds of life occurring on Earth after the fact because we don't know what factors are important and which aren't.

It seems to me that any probabilities concerning the rise or fall of life on Earth or elsewhere are based on mere speculation derived from arbitrary numbers. It's about as useful as saying God did it.

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I show affection for my pets by holding them against me and whispering, "I love you" repeatedly as they struggle to break free.

It seems to me that any probabilities concerning the rise or fall of life on Earth or elsewhere are based on mere speculation derived from arbitrary numbers. It's about as useful as saying God did it.

That's not quite accurate. I suspect that some, perhaps most, of the individual calculations that get thrown around when talking about the origins of life are accurate as far as they go. The arbitrariness comes from the idea that we can calculate the odds of something like the chances of life originating on a lifeless planet by simply multiplying the probabilities together. This of course results in a probability calculation that ranges from the ludicrous to the mind boggling, but that calculation is both inaccurate and deceptive. Let me go dig out one site that Godexists used to try to 'prove' that life couldn't have originated on its own that at least tried to show its work.

I'm not going to waste time going over each and every one of their parameters, but it's obvious that they're multiplying all of those probabilities together to come up with an overall 'chance' of approximately 10-304 of any single life-supporting body occurring. Except that is not how probability works; even if every single one of those parameters were significant and accurate[1], multiplying them all together like that is deceptive.

We don't know that the parameters are independent of each other in the first place.

We don't know how many of those parameters matter.

We don't know if the probability of those parameters being 'correct' is accurate.

It is almost certain that those parameters would not have been determined at the same time.

It is far more likely for sequential parameters to fall into the 'correct' values by chance than it is for simultaneous ones to do so - just the same as it's much easier to roll ten sixes if you roll each dice separately and move on once the dice you're rolling comes up as a six instead of rolling all ten dice simultaneously, and re-rolling all ten until you come up with all sixes at the same time.

Once something has happened, its probability becomes 100%, regardless of what it might have been before.

I hope that explains what I mean. We can calculate individual parameters, but we can't put them together meaningfully. We certainly can't act like we just have to multiply all those probabilities together to come up with an arbitrary chance of something happening.

which I suspect is not true, since we know of exactly one life-bearing planet in the entire universe, so how can anyone say that there's a 1/10 chance of, say, dark matter being abundant and distributed correctly?

so does being equally dishonest mean my words of the past were dishonest, or my word were honest so the new words are equal to the words in the past which means I am telling the truth now as I was in the past.

Pretty much everything you have said so far is obviously dishonest and insincere. Your claim that you keep an open mind and desire to learn is contradicted by everything that you've said so far. Much of which I took the time to point out in my two previous posts. Also your ignoring of everyone who pointed out your flaws in reasoning and your repeated fallacies also belies your claims. Including post #122 which alone speaks volumes about you, and none of it very good or endearing.

Everything evidenced in your words and behaviour so far marks you as clearly disingenuos.

whatever, this could give me a headache. Look I am not asking you or anyone to trust me up front, time will tell.. either I am real and honest or I am a liar that should be shot in the head.. What I do will let you know which kind of person I am . So I take no offence to your caution.

You've already done a very good job of letting us all know that.

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"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

Alzael: so ,,lol.. you are not going to put me on you xmas list..lol.. works for me,,again.. time will tell . as for my flaws.lmao. dude , yea I got some. maybe one day I will be unflawed like you. and if you don't believe you are unflawed... well .. glass houses young man.. opinion differ from person to person about me and I am sure about you ,,what reason would I have to give a false impression if that is what you mean. Just so you understand me .. I am not trying to change your mind about you beliefs or lack of. I don't know you and I more than likely never will . All I am doing is questioning my beliefs with the facts that are out there(facts not opinions) and the truth, be it from reason or physical facts that will take me where it takes me. And with all honesty if that makes you question me or think that I am trying to trick you into worshipping a God that you don't believe in , well ,, you may have some issues more important than me that you should deal with. so I guess I can not use any of your post for my paper..lol.. and I know unflawed is not correct, I just wanted to give you some evidence to help you prove you point of me being flawed.. you crack me up dude

Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

Alzael: so ,,lol.. you are not going to put me on you xmas list..lol.. works for me,,again.. time will tell . as for my flaws.lmao. dude , yea I got some. maybe one day I will be unflawed like you. and if you don't believe you are unflawed... well .. glass houses young man.. opinion differ from person to person about me and I am sure about you ,,what reason would I have to give a false impression if that is what you mean. Just so you understand me .. I am not trying to change your mind about you beliefs or lack of. I don't know you and I more than likely never will . All I am doing is questioning my beliefs with the facts that are out there(facts not opinions) and the truth, be it from reason or physical facts that will take me where it takes me. And with all honesty if that makes you question me or think that I am trying to trick you into worshipping a God that you don't believe in , well ,, you may have some issues more important than me that you should deal with. so I guess I can not use any of your post for my paper..lol.. and I know unflawed is not correct, I just wanted to give you some evidence to help you prove you point of me being flawed.. you crack me up dude

As I said. Not a trace of honesty in anything you say. Nor indication of an honest desire to engage in a conversation.

Nothing you say in anyway refutes or even responds to the points that I made. You're just dodging and making Ad Hominems and Strawmen.

If you are actually trying to learn something, then you should make some effort to pay attention to what I am trying to point out to you.

By your own admission you operate on certain base assumptions about how the world works. Assumptions which I pointed out ( and you have avoided responding to) have no evidentiary basis. You then rely on fallacious arguments to support your position. In so doing you have ruled out any possibility of actually learning anything. Instead you will only come up with arguments that reinforce what you already want to believe.

So to claim that you are interested in learning is dishonest, until you abandon your presumptions. This is not an opinion, it is a simple statement of truth. You can make all of the Ad Hominems and Strawmen that you wish but it won't change that fact.

You can either attempt to adjust the behaviour, and thereby honestly try to learn about the world. Or you can continue wallowing in your self-imposed ignorance and lie to everyone (yourself especially) about learning the truth in regards to the world. It is, of course, your choice. I was merely pointing out the obvious flaws so that you could learn from the mistakes that you were clearly making (you are trying to learn right?).

If you can't honestly engage in conversation about the points people raise then how can you honestly claim to be here to discuss/learn anything? This is why the question was raised in the first place.

Now then, there are several valid points that people in this thead have raised against the ideas that you have presented. Do you have anything to say in regards to those points that were raised that is not a fallacy or a snide attack on the persons character (which you have done in response to me twice now, in lieu of making an adult rebuttal to what was said). If you truly wish to be thought of as engaging in honest conversation, here is your chance to demonstrate it.

You can cease your childish behaviour and discuss the issues raised in the manner that is generally expected on the forum. Or you can continue to behave as you have so far and prove my points to be correct.

As I said, the choice is up to you.

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"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

Alzael: Being honest is a very hard to do. Alot of people say they are and more than likely believe they are to a point. But if you stop being honest at any point , then I guess you are not really being honest at all as hard as it is to admit , after giving your last post some thought, I guess I do fix into that catgory. Being that I don't know you and I don't have to see you on a daily base , I am going to try and be as honest as is possible for me at this time. As I read your earlier post regarding my honesty, I felt insulted and belittled. Why I felt that way I do not know. However trying to be an adult about it I tried not to let it upset me. however it did upset me. I do want to learn ,, I do want to incease my understanding of the world. I do what to know why I believe in a God, I do want to know why you and so many others don't. That is the truth. Living in the world as I have , yes I more than likely have base assumptions that I live my life by and make decisions by. Putting these aside may not be possible for me, But I am willing to try. Telling you that I know I can refrain from allowing my beliefs to shadow new information would be untrue. because at this time , I truly don't know.. I can only hope that I can embrace whatever knowledge I learn , understanding that I may have to learn how to learn. (as confusing as that sounds). Is it possible that if I truly learn that the God I believe in is false that I won't hide my head in the sand and pray to a God that is not real for forgiveness for questioning him, maybe. I hope not. But to say what I will do in the future would only be a guess. I have not been a believer for along time , which maybe why I am searching. As for having a conversation with people that I believe may have more education than myself. I feel that whatever I bring to the table is something that you will feel is totally unfounded so a waste of time to deal with. I guess I just don't what to feel stupid. You may say that is the price you pay to learn but please understand that I am not a kid and I very seldom feel stupid with the people that I deal with or the life I lead , so just the thought of it is uncomfortable for me. But that does not mean that I don't want to learn , just that learning to learn is really going to be a lesson. Plus I have read alot of the post on here , to a normal guy like me , High school. first year of college. the things I have read does not sound to friendly. Many of the post seem to just be putting down people that believe and making fun of them ,, that in itself is intimidating , so just coming here in the first place took some guts. I did not come here to make a few smart ass remarks then disappear into the web never to be heard of again. I am sure you get your fair share of that,. Any way , this is more than likely more information about me and the way I feel than you wanted. So if you want me to bow out and leave your site. I will but want I just wrote is more honest than I have been in years. All I can do is try my best. Your Call. My Respects

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Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

Oh for the love of f**k. Could you at least make an attempt to write something that doesn't hurt to read?

Don't just type what you think. You spend entire paragraphs working out what it is you're trying to say, saying the same things over and over because you don't know what it is that you're saying. Say what you know and say what you want to say but please spare your reader the thought roadmap that got you there. You might be saying good stuff but nobody will ever know because what you've said you said-ified thirty times leading up to the final saying and that says to me, well, you might not really have a clue what you're saying. I mean you should say things that you mean to say but don't say all the stuff that you have to think before you say it because otherwise you end up saying too goddamn much that nobody has the time to read. By the time you finally say something that resembles a point I've already dozed off half a dozen times following your line of thinking that lead up to your statement that you've said.

Translation = CUT TO THE FUCKING CHASE, ACE. I ain't got all day.

For realz. If this is you with unlimited time to edit and condense your thoughts, you must be one seriously rambling, long-winded guy to talk to you in real life.

Also, as long as I'm beating on you (sorry about that), Christ, man. Press "enter" once in a while and break up your paragraphs. Re-read what you've written once or twice before you hit the "post" button and double check your grammar. Learn the difference between to, too, and two, and your and you're.

I mean, you ARE going to college, right? Then for dog's sake, take a little pride in what you write!

And put a leash on your commas... They seem to be trying to run away from your words.

I hate being a text nazi, but s**t. I'm sorry, but your stuff is a hot mess dude.

Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

You people are a tough crowd. I hope this is more of what you expect. Putting together a complete sentence on here is something that never occurred to me. I always thought of it as kind of a text. I am sorry for the tear. I did not know that baby Jesus would react like that.

Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

You people are a tough crowd. I hope this is more of what you expect. Putting together a complete sentence on here is something that never occurred to me. I always thought of it as kind of a text. I am sorry for the tear. I did not know that baby Jesus would react like that.

Well, now you know. And knowing's half the battle.

And yes, thank you 1,000 times for writing something I can read without my lungs trying to punch my heart valves closed. I actually gave you a golf clap.

It's a pride and respect issue my man. Have enough pride in what you're writing to take the time to say whatever you're trying to say WELL and legibly... And have enough respect for whoever you're talking with, to try and NOT make it a struggle for them to understand you.

You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down? 'Cos straight up, if you write like a 13 year old sending a text message, I'm just flat out not going to bother reading whatever it is that you write. There's a billion other things on the internet that AREN'T written in intellectual crayon, ya dig?

Living in the world as I have , yes I more than likely have base assumptions that I live my life by and make decisions by. Putting these aside may not be possible for me, But I am willing to try.Telling you that I know I can refrain from allowing my beliefs to shadow new information would be untrue. because at this time , I truly don't know..

As for having a conversation with people that I believe may have more education than myself. I feel that whatever I bring to the table is something that you will feel is totally unfounded so a waste of time to deal with. I guess I just don't what to feel stupid.

That is always a possibility whenever you bring any idea out into the public sphere where it can be criticized. And trust me, any idea that gets tossed out on this forum (irregardless of religious or non-religious affiliation) will be criticized. We all risk looking and feeling stupid everytime we open our mouths (or type on the keyboard in this case). Any ideas you voice that are seen as stupid will certainly be pointed out as such, but the one thing that I think you'll learn quickly if you decide to stick around here is that most of the people here don't really mind stupid all that much. We all do and think stupid things on occasion.

What is far more likely to get you ridiculed and pounded on is being dishonest, avoiding legitimate points, and using fallacies in your arguments. Intellectual honesty tends to be a very important thing to a lot of atheists. It's also the thing that is most likely to lose/gain you respect from a lot of the people here. No one is implying that you should agree with everything that is said, or adhere to the same viewpoints as the group. Merely that whatever conclusions you come to should be reached for the reasons of rational inquiry and critical thinking, not willful ignorance/blindness.

Plus I have read alot of the post on here , to a normal guy like me , High school. first year of college. the things I have read does not sound to friendly. Many of the post seem to just be putting down people that believe and making fun of them ,, that in itself is intimidating , so just coming here in the first place took some guts.

Keep in mind that a lot of the theists who come here do so only to preach. Out of the ones that don't, most of them are essentially parrots, repeating spurious claims over and over without providing evidence or anything to back themselves up. Then ignore the arguments that are made against them and make the same claims. Once they can't use the same claims they then move onto another idiotic and unsupported claims and try to portray this as making an actual argument or rebuttal. Like I said, that sort of behaviour is what's going to cause people to have no respect for you, as opposed to if you just say something they think is stupid.

And keep in mind that people like this are a daily occurence for us. That's why I make it a policy to always speak bluntly with the people who come here. I actually used to make a lot of effort to be especially nice to the new theists that come through here. The irritation and frustration from holding back when faced with people like that started to drive me over the edge into out and out hate and despise for all theists. So I realized that rather than putting in so much effort towards being the nice guy to people like that I decided that it was much better for my piece of mind to simply come out and speak what I really wanted to say. Which is why if I think someone is being an idiot I never hesitate to tell it to them.

So if you want me to bow out and leave your site. I will but want I just wrote is more honest than I have been in years. All I can do is try my best. Your Call.

Whether you leave the site or not is up to you.

I will say this however. We get very few theists that come here with a genuine desire to actually hold a legitimate conversation. The ones that do most of us are glad to have around because the debates are more interesting. The debate being one of the main reasons for this site to exist. With the ones that aren't going to contribute to a conversation there's essentially nothing else that can be done except make fun of them. You can't have a reasonable conversation with someone that is unwilling to use reason. As I said before, the category that you fall under is going to be entirely up to you.

But....this is a rough crowd, we like to fight and verbally roughhouse. Not just with theists but with each other as well. The criticism you get here is likely to be harsh on occasion. Not because of your beliefs, because that's simply how we roll. It's what gets us to the truth.

As a final sidenote, yes, you really do need to learn how to learn. Fortunately this is a very good place for that, if nothing else. Your ideas will be picked apart and people will point out when you're making mistakes in your reasoning. My advice is to listen to them when they do.

My first piece of advice is to listen to yourself when you type. If you have to start something with "I assume" or "I believe", that's a very good general sign that you should reconsider what you are about to say.

Also I would suggest learning about logical fallacies. The entire purpose of logic is to subject your thoughts to critical analysis so that you can avoid fallacious thoughts and conclusions.

velkyn: thank you , I will pm you as soon as I can , I am on my way to class now.. .. and as for young,, lol.. I wish i was 45 again.. thank you for you help. you seem like a very caring person. and the world can use all of them it can get.

I am over 45 years of age. The reference to high school and first year of college was to establish my education or lack of. I should have clarified myself.

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Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin

wow. I truly do not know how to answer the question of ; am I a Christian or not. I am not sure what a Christian is.

Well, DUH! you obviously have a computer and internet access - why not have a EUREKA! moment and Google "definition of a Christian?"

You did notice him saying immediately after this that he had seen people define Christianity for themselves, right?

After reading the post of ungod I thought he made a good point. Here is what I found:Chris·tian (krschn)adj.1. Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus.2. Relating to or derived from Jesus or Jesus's teachings.3. Manifesting the qualities or spirit of Jesus; Christlike.4. Relating to or characteristic of Christianity or its adherents.5. Showing a loving concern for others; humane.

If I am to take the word Christian as the above meaning , would that then mean that not all people claiming to be Christians (West Boro Baptist Church) are Christians. If I am to agree with that statement, then the statement of ; They are not true christian could be correct in some statements. Would that not be a fair assessment?

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Most people think they know what they know. The problem starts by not knowing what you don't know. You know? (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) (Albert Einstein)One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour. --Nikolai Lenin